Knight-Radiant
Recovering Rageaholic
So... I was in a creative mood the other day and decided to bust out my photo editing skills to make a little something.
I hope y'all like it ☺
I hope y'all like it ☺
Fate/Revelation Online
- Thread starter daniel_gudman
- Start date
This is great, @Knight-Radiant !
It's a Saber Lily Install edit, right?
Why the turquoise stones, though?
It's a Saber Lily Install edit, right?
Why the turquoise stones, though?
Knight-Radiant
Recovering Rageaholic
You got it!
I added the stones to the cape because when I went back and did a reread to get a better idea of the outfit, it mentioned that Ilya's cape had stones/pebbles from the Ore Rocks Boss attached to it. (9-4 if you are curious) It didn't give a description of the colors, but I went with purple and blue/green to double down on the Ice Fairy look
- Location
- Philadelphia
Honestly with Illya's cape, given that I think it's made of white leather and studded with precious stones, I just couldn't shake the mental impression of it looking like Kaiba's coat, though that's probably too tacky even for her.
She took the King Sime's crown. She invented the [Stupid Helmet]. She built a Skull Keep for her guild base/home. You were saying?
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Hey, if I could live in a place as metal as Castle Grayskull, I would, too.
As for gaudy equipment... It's an MMO. Nearly all the good stuff will be excessively overblown with only the occasional understated one just to provide contrast.
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Guile
Having a really great time right now
Actually, I always thought the character design in SAO was extremely understated for an MMO, and generally well-designed. No gargantuan glowing shoulderpads here.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
Even the guild uniforms were actually reasonable.
Actually a rather logical consequence of the whole VR aspect.
Its one thing to look at your character wearing an absurd outfit like that, but its another thing entirely to actually wear said outfit yourself.
As I understand it the massive pauldrons and stuff is just from how hard it can be to see design elements on a comparatively tiny sprite on your screen. Whereas in VR, said huge pauldrons would kill your visibility, mobility and shortly after those, you.
39 millenia later
Oi, Chapter Master, look what the Tech Marines dug up outa this ancient archive?
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I remember reading somewhere that Reki said that was intentional -- because the SAO Incident was (literally) deathly serious, nobody wanted to be parading around in costumes. And because they were trapped inside 100% of the time, nobody wanted to be doing dress-up escapism, everybody treated their Gear as like, work uniforms and IRL street clothes. So the Player gear-crafters ended up making stuff that was incredibly conservative and bland by the standards of MMO kit.
Conversely the costumes in Alfheim were more outlandish because that was more of a traditional MMO.
Well, for the anime at least, I suspect that keeping things simple and easy to draw was a big pressure against outlandish and complicated gear designs too.
Mattman324
you expected some anime, non-IRL giant robot, eh?
- Location
- Working in the basement on my giant robot.
I mean if it wasn't a fight to the death I'd dress up in the silliest fucking shit ever.
This is a pretty valid concern.
- Location
- Netherlands
VR chat is a thing though.
People are DEFINITELY gonna wear weird shit.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
VR chat doesn't have death as a consequence. Although maybe it should.
See, here's the thing.
SAO's type of VR you actually feel yourself wearing those silly clothes. And you have to actually live in them day in day out, not just wear them for a few hours at a time like a cosplayer.
Impractical clothes like that are a pain in the ass to actually live in.
And one has to remember that they fight in those clothes. The fact of the matter is that those outlandish clothes you wear in games are impractical to fight in. Having spikes, curves, ribbons, etc. is just asking to trip up in them or them to get caught up in something.
The clothes they were are for fighting, not fashion.
The clothes they were are for fighting, not fashion.
- Location
- Philadelphia
Maybe my aesthetics are kind of warped from being on the Fate side of things, but from what I've seen of Servants, you can wear whatever you want, but I guess they are both the greatest warriors of all time, and are already dead so they're less inclined to be as pragmatic.
17.4 Vs 20F Boss
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The [Floor Boss] who ruled over the [20th Floor]. Proudly displaying the name [King Krab], the bright-red crustacean was big even for a Floor Boss, standing three meters tall but five meters across at the abdomen, plus the six legs, with massive claws on top of that. Three health bars.
It slumbered in the lagoon at the center of this atoll, unusually dark waters that sat unusually still, until they had managed to trigger the event to awaken the Boss. Now they had dragged it out, pulling it onto the beach where they could fight it directly.
That was the boss that stood in front of Lind, as she planted her feet, raising her [Platina Halberd] above her head, in a threatening guard position.
The Krab scuttled forward, moving three steps sideways for every step forward, but it was approaching Lind like a tidal wave.
That was fine. Her halberd was as light as a reed in her hands, as she spun it around, flicking it easily as a baton. She stepped three times, so light she didn't even leave footprints on the beach sands beneath her. Even wearing her full suit of [Heavy Armor].
The Krab came in range, and stepped with half its legs, putting its whole body into the rotation as the claw bore down on her like a battering ram. It wasn't trying to pinch around her; it was closed almost like a fist, as the outside of it rushed forward like the Krab was going to smash her with a backfist.
But that was fine. She planted her feet, strongly grasped the half of her beautiful weapon, and strongly flexed her magecraft.
It was easy as breathing, now. Breath out, and leave the lungs flat and empty. As easily as that, she could flatten the curvature of space, making her as light and clear as a gas, floating across the surface of reality. Breath in, expand the ribs, drop the diaphragm, inflate the lungs to maximum, and her whole body was as heavy as lead, existing as a strong and solid metal, implacable. Her boots dug down, crushing down into the sand, her footprints centimeters deep.
The spinning Halberd lost no speed as she cheated the [World] of Aincrad, maintaining the speed even as the mass increased, as she paid Prana to create momentum from nowhere. Like that, firmly gripped in her gauntlets, the blow of the halberd intercepted the blow of the Krab.
The Klaw of the [King Krab] bore down on her like the grill of a truck, and her treasured weapon swung out, hammering like an artillery blow.
She didn't lose. In a contest of inertia, the one that existed more heavily in the world was not the Krab as wide as a building, but one lone woman.
Her ears rang from the fierce blow, nearly deafening her, even as she firmly resettled her [Platina Halberd] into a guarding stance.
Her boys wasted no time.
Yamata flickered through the air, blowing back and forth like a leaf. The various rocket verniers he had installed on his armor fired according to his orders, pushing him back and forth as he whipped back and forth. Prioritizing weight reduction over control, he didn't control his flight so much as continuously over-compensate, accepting that every time he would push too hard. It made him surprisingly hard to track, as he drunk-walked approximately towards his target, rather than properly closing in.
Shivata charged forward, tucked behind his massive shield, held in front of him like the strong plow of a bulldozer, as he slammed into a leg, forcing [King Krab] to stumble.
Above him, Yamata saw the chance, and whipped his sword out, slashing at the other Klaw, suddenly dropping his weight reduction to smash boot-first into the top of the Krab, a firm stamp at the same time as the slash.
And then he slipped, flailing around as his feet flung forward from under him. He reacted quickly, re-activating his Spell, and pushed himself with his rockets several times in succession, averaging out to [up] with his shoves.
"Switch!" He shouted as he did so.
"Switching!" Came the shout from across her.
Agil. Leader of the Guild [Agil's Item Shop], who equipped a monstrous battleaxe that could challenge even her [Platina Halberd] as the heaviest weapon on the [Front Line].
A single party of six. Three from her own [Divine Dragon Alliance], and the other half those three from [Agil's Item Shop], one of the smallest [Guilds] on the front line. Right now, they were halfway doing a scouting action to suss out the Boss' parameters, and half setting up something crazy.
But for right now, Agil's axe left a dark shadow textured like dirt as he swung it. Lind recognized it as the [Earth Kestrel] spell, one of the [Five Birds] series of elemental magics. Agil was working through them one-by-one, attempting to determine the Boss' elemental strengths and weaknesses.
As he finished the solid horizontal blow, he crouched, and then pushed off and back, retreating away. "Switch!" He shouted.
"Switching!" Shouted his man Tonnura, as he darted forward with a katana in both hands. He was low to the ground, sword tight, guarding from the front. He came forward, weaving between the legs, sword whipping out in tight arcs, slashing as he ran past them with magecraft-enhanced speed.
And then a PM appeared, and Lind narrowed her eyes. "Retreat!" She shouted. "To the bunkers!"
She backpedaled, making sure that her boys followed, and that the two with Agil also pulled back, as they darted away.
They were like pillboxes, low and sloping concrete structures that had been installed before the battle had started, before they had drawn the boss over here with Aggro. The walls were two-meter-thick concrete. Lind grunted as Yamata and Shivata darted past her, and she heaved, swinging the first armored door in, where it settled with a mighty thump against it's frame.
She darted through the cavity in the wall, pushing off the double-right-angles, as Shivata swung the second door in, sealing them inside. It was cramped, a cavity in sealed rock, lit by a single swinging light, one of those strange gemcraft almost-light-bulb things.
She sent the PM to Klein confirming that her half of the party was fine. Since his Guild had been the ones to find the Boss, he had been allowed to suggest this crazy plan first.
I I I
Klein stood on the deck of [Boaty McBoatface 3], palms resting on the pommel of his sheathed katana, planted in front of him like a cane.
In front of him, a PM appeared, indicating that Lind's half was safe.
At base it was an extremely orthodox [Yacht], but they'd added some stuff to make it cooler. Isshin and Dynamm had worked together to create a hydrofoil along the bottom of the prow. Operationally it worked the same as an airplane wing. By creating a pressure differential as water flowed across the bottom and top of the surface, it could generate lift and push upwards. By mounting the entire boat onto the hydrofoil using a strut, at enough speed it could push the entire hull out of the water, allowing the whole boat to sit above the water, only the hydrofoil submerged to create lift.
A second PM appeared, this time from Agil, letting him know those three were bunkered down as well.
Meanwhile, Harry One and Kunimittz had worked together on the really exciting part, the [Rocket Engine]. Two isolated tanks holding an oxidizer and a fuel, each with a pump to push them into a combustion chamber, where they burned ferociously hot, and then a nozzle to control the expulsion of the reaction gas to generate thrust. For a speedboat it would have been fine to just create a propeller or something, but rockets were a man's romance.
Klein nodded to himself, dismissing the PMs. "Operation start." He commanded. "Status report."
Fortunately Dale had already figured out how to liquefy air using a hybridization of [Air] and [Water] magic with some [Alchemy] tips off Ilya-san, so they were able to use liquid oxygen as their oxidizer. Working with cryogenic liquids was a nightmare and LOX was scary stuff that Klein didn't want them carrying around in case a tank exploded and everything caught fire or something, but other than all that, it was great. So all they'd had to do for consumables was figure out how to refine [Kerosene] out of bog-oil from the Slime Floor and whatever.
Well, as a result, they were cruising along at nearly minimum speed, only a few kilometers an hour, hull down in the water.
"Liquid pressure good. 70% fuel remaining, 75% LOX remaining." Harry One reported. They didn't have any instrumentation like pressure gauges or thermometers or anything like that; making the dials and faces and calibrating them would have been a ton of work, so they cheated by just embedding sensor elements, simple strands of brass, inside the tanks and lines and then remotely checking them with [Structural Grasp] magecraft. Klein didn't know where exactly Kirito had gotten his hands on that SG variant, but that spell was incredibly useful for checking stuff like that.
"Engine is stable. No oscillation." Kunimittz added, as he adjusted some valves to moderate the flow rate of fuel and oxidizer into the combustion chamber. That was another place where they ended up just cheating with magecraft, by simply [Reinforcing] everything to maximum strength so it wouldn't fail and explode underneath them.
It was a good thing that the whole lagoon in the Floor Starting Area was a [Safe Zone]. The first seven times they'd test fired the engines, which then failed in very exciting and rapid ways, Team Rocket had blasted off again. Never mind the [Real World], that wouldn't normally be survivable even in the [Game].
"Are we aligned with the target?" Klein asked.
"Target sighted and marked." Dynamm shouted back, from where he was strapped laying down at the very front of the boat, working as a forward spotter.
"Vessel aligned on mark." Isshin added, from where he was working the big steering wheel.
"Come to cruising speed." Klein commanded. "Dale, blow the canopy and manually moderate the wind."
"Flaring." Kunimittz reported, as the rocket burned more fuel, accelerating them forward. Klein leaned forward into it. The rest of them were properly strapped into crash seats. After just a moment, the ride smoothed out as the hull rose over the water and they glided along on the hydroplanes, coming up to about fifty kmph.
The roof of the vessel blew off as Dale removed the connections, letting it get picked up and peeled off by the winds blowing over their heads. Well, because Dale created a dome of quietude with Air Magecraft, it was still a smooth and silent ride inside the boat.
"Aligned?" Klein shouted.
"Aligned!" Dynamm replied.
"Aligned!" Isshin seconded.
Klein frowned, gauging the distance as he [Reinforced] his vision to the limit.
"On my mark!" He said, biting his lip as he estimated their speed, the acceleration they still had in the tank, and the distance remaining.
The time was right. He whipped his sword dramatically out of the sheathe, pointing the katana straight ahead at the target.
"Ramming speed!" He bellowed.
"Fuel flow to maximum!" Harry One shouted. "Oxidizer flow tuning… tuned to match!"
"Maximum full combustion!" Kunimittz shouted.
Klein grunted as he was nearly blown off his feat, leaning forward at a forty-five degree angle, relying on the raw Reinforced power of his body to stay standing. He instinctively squinted as the vessel surged forward, rapidly accelerating, going past two hundred kmph. Faster than they'd ever gone before. And there was still speed in in the tank.
"Closing in!" Dynamm shouted.
"Dale! Dynamm!" Klein commanded. "Eject!"
"Ejecting!" Dale and Dynamm said, as the pushed back and jumped into the air, letting the wind blowing over the top of the vessel rip them away. Klein glanced over his shoulder, nodding in satisfaction as they pulled their drag cords to slow down. Well, they were wearing specialized armor to protect against the crash impact onto the water that was also flotation equipment, so that should be fine.
With Dale gone, suddenly the wind picked up, whipping past them and howling in their ears, as they blasted over the surface of the water, the sound of the rocket roar no longer dampened by the spell.
"Engine stable!" Kunimittz shouted over the wind.
"Kunimittz, Harry One! Eject!" Klein shouted.
"Ejecting!" They replied, smashing the disconnects on their seatbelts and leaping up, tumbling in to the air after Dale and Dynamm.
"Steady!" Isshin roared, gripping the steering wheel.
They were closing in on the beach, still accelerating. Looks like they'd underestimated what the top speed of this thing really was.
"On my mark…. Eject!" Klein said, as he crouched down and pushed up, seeing Isshin do the same next to him.
With the full reinforced strength, he launched himself superhumanly high in the air, tumbling around completely disoriented from the buffeting wind. He pulled the drag cord, and jerked as it forcefully tugged on his chest harness, aligning him.
It happened in an instant.
The [Boaty McBoatface 3] rocketed forward, a blur of red as the hydrofoil was ripped off against the shore and the hull was launched like a missile, hurtling over the beach.
The Floor Boss, [King Krab], didn't even have time to react before their ship slammed into it in excess of three hundred kilometers an hour.
Then the excess fuel they'd tanked in the forward hull exploded, and in the same instant, the LOX tank ruptured, and a massive secondary fireball rippled out, a shockwave proceeding it at the speed of sound.
Klein was already moving, operating his Inventory and materializing the specialized [Tower Shield] that they'd created for exactly this purpose.
He saw the front of the shockwave expanded out in either direction, he saw the fireball billowing out behind it, and then it was blocked off by the dark metal that abruptly appeared in front of him. Reacting quickly, he curled up, pulling himself tight against the handles.
The shockwave struck like a car, punching his whole body through the shield, even through the shock-absorbing gel cells sandwiched between the plates.
"Guh!" Klein grunted, even as he was flipped over and the shield spun away from him as he fell, probably. He didn't know which way was up or where the shield had gone. Well, that was fine. The shield had done it's job protecting him from the impact. He tucked himself down, wrapping his head in his arms, legs tucked up, and then he cannoballed against the surface of the water, shoulder first.
He tumbled again, as the last of his forward speed and most of his downward speed were braked against the water. Well, the drag-cord and the crash shield had both done a good job reducing his forward speed, but if he hadn't had his whole body fully Reinforced than he probably would have taken a big hit just against the water.
When he judged his relative momentum was canceled, he untucked and blew some air out his nose. He wasn't so deep the sunlight was blotted out, so he could probably swim fine, but his clothing was optimized for protection not weight, so it would be struggle to swim against the encumbrance penalty.
[Congratulations!] The prompt appeared in front of him, announcing they'd defeated the Boss. How nice. The musical sting and the holographic banner both looked out of place while he was slowly sinking into the water. Speaking of which, he should probably do something about that, huh?
Klein opened his inventory, which was perfectly visible with its auto-glow even underwater, and swapped out his armored coat for a life vest, letting the buoyancy of the equipment lift him up.
His head popped above the waves, and he blew out the rest of what was in his lungs through his nose, and then gulped in fresh air, as he paddled back and forth, checking his surroundings and pulling up his HUD, verifying his Party were all alive.
Smoke was rising, and he could hear fires burning over the waves crashing against a beach. He looked over, and smiled.
The Boss Arena was gone, replaced by a crater. The tropical trees and bushes that weren't entirely blown away were burning, fire spreading outward and across the whole island, black smoke rising up into the air.
The acrid smoke overlaid on the salty tang of sea-air smelled like Victory.
I I I
"This is pretty good." Kirito said, face slackening as he chewed.
"Yes." Asuna agreed, smiling lightly, as she carefully lifted a portion to her mouth, humming in delight as it crossed her palate.
The Floor Boss who ruled over the 20th Floor, called [King Krab]. After being magnificently defeated by the wisdom of the [Fuurinkazan], they primary drop had been a literal ton of the mysterious food ingredient, [Krab Meat?] (Question mark in original).
Klein being Klein, as a result, there was a huge beach party, where dozens of [Cooking Stations] had been established on the beach of the 20th Floor Starting City [Safe Zone]. The objective was to eat all the [Krab Meat?] (Question mark in original).
Down by the water there were volleyball nets, where the main attraction was a team battle between Silica and Kuradeel. To be precise, a team battle between their [Familiars] where they stood back and shouted orders like dueling Pokemon masters, while Ilya sat in a tall chair and did a terrible job as referee.
And here, up in the dunes, was one of those [Cooking Stations] that was shaped like a portable grill, where Asuna was using the [Cooking Skill] to create different kinds of food from [Krab Meat?] (Question mark etc.).
Kirito was wearing a pair of swim trunks, in all-black, of course.
Meanwhile, Asuna was wearing a bikini, red with black highlights. Including a nearly transparent red sarong over the top. Kirito hadn't dared to ask what what the reasoning for that color scheme was.
It was also surprisingly hard for Kirito to keep his eyes up on her face when she moved food into his inventory through the trade window. He kept wanting to trace the lines of her body with his eyes. He wanted some kind of [Spell] that would commit what he saw to some kind of illusion recording.
"Here." Asuna commanded, operating her menu again. "Try this."
She leaned forward towards him, her expression almost scowling as she looked at him in expectation.
Kirito swallowed, keeping his face stiff as he reached out and clicked accept, trusting in his peripheral vision rather than risking his eyes wandering around if he allowed himself to look down. "Thanks." He said. Quietly he congratulated himself on how normal and completely un-strained he sounded.
Then he got distracted by what he saw in the inventory. [Krabbie Patty]. It was some kind of hamburger-type food item, but the stats were weirdly high, and that name… he couldn't put his finger on where he'd heard it, before.
Still, he materialized it, considering the burger he held in both hands, hefting it carefully. Wasting food was a sin. "Itadakimasu." He sang, before taking a big bite.
"Umm." He said, drawing the sound out. "Delicious!"
"Ah." Asuna replied, smiling behind a hand. "I'm glad you like it. Kirito-kun."
Why hadn't she materialized a burger. Why was she just watching him eat.
That was what Kirito was struggling with. He felt like by not asking he had succeeded on a Will Save, but he couldn't articulate why that was the case. It was something like instinct that told him that.
"Riajuu. Go explode."
Kirito flinched, twisting and stepping into a battle stance at the words that were spoken from behind him. "Ah, it's just you, Argo."
"Yeah, yeah." Argo said, rolling her eyes. "That's no way to talk to your neesan, Kiribou."
Absently, Kirito noticed she was wearing a brown bikini with some kind of yellow highlight pattern, probably to match her blonde hair. He still wondered if she bleached it IRL, but had never really been close enough to ask, and anyway at this point it would be pointless and almost mean to inquire. Well, she was also wearing a flat brown hat with a full brim. It was perfectly one of those bucket-shaped hats you'd see on a fishing show.
"Hai hai, Argo-neesan." Kirito said flippantly. "But be careful and ask nicely, otherwise Asuna-neechan isn't going to give you any food."
Asuna just shook her head with an indulgent expression, before operating her menu.
With a smug expression, Argo reached out and clicked on where her own menu would be, without looking. "Thanks, Asuna-chan."
"No problem, Argo-chan." Asuna replied, cheerfully. "Would you like more food? Kirito-kun."
Kirito grimaced. "Yes, but let me finish this first, please. It's good so I don't want to rush."
"Riajuu." Argo muttered, materializing her own sandwich and taking a big bite, chewing aggressively.
Kirito considered that. It wasn't quite like Argo was trying to tease them just for the sake of teasing them, it kind of… felt like she was trying to set up the opening move to the thing she actually wanted to talk about.
"So is this where I ask for 100 Col, or what?" Kirito decided on.
"Hoh?" Argo said, glancing at him from under the brim of her hat. "It's cute that you're catching on, Kiribou, but it's not nice to flirt with your neechan in front of the main girl."
"Argo." Asuna replied, in a perfectly businesslike tone that wasn't frosty at all.
"Right, right." Argo said, with a flinch. "Anyway, I'm collecting bets on why Klein didn't get a [Title] out of his shenanigans, so if you've got a hypothesis, I'd be happy to pool you in."
"How would you even determine who won?" Kirito said, frowning as he considered the logistics.
Argo just rolled her eyes at him.
"Well," Asuna said as she engaged with the question honestly, "A [Title] is something a Player gets for single-handedly defeating a Boss, right?"
"Nah." Kirito casually replied, as he polished off his burger. "It's for coming up with something non-reproducible that screws up game balance, right?"
Argo gave him a considering look. "That's a pretty interesting perspective, Kiribou. Don't most Front Liners agree with Asuna-chan on this one?"
Asuna was also giving him a strange look, although she was a little more guarded about it. It made Kirito feel strangely defensive.
"Well, look." Kirito said, as he considered how to say it. "It's like… being able to solo a Boss is a symptom, but that's just the obvious thing. Like… suppose someone came up with a spell like [Avada Kedavra] or something, that anyone with enough Dark Side Points could use to whack anybody, Boss or not." He gestured vaguely with his hands. "The game would balance against it by giving every [Boss] like, flying Adds that would soak them, or protection against instadeath, or whatever, right?"
Kirito nodded in certainty. "But if it's something that one-and-only-one person could do, then that person would get a Title, and the game would just throw up it's hands and stop trying to balance against them, at the cost to everyone else."
"You've got a lot of confidence, Kirito-kun." Asuna said, giving him a speculative look. "Are you sure it's warranted?"
Kirito gave her a crooked grin as he rigidly kept his gaze focused on her eyes. She huffed, looking down and to the side as she crossed her arms defensively.
Kirito forcibly changed the subject back. "Well… okay. This is a little sensitive, but… Kayaba Akihiko was a stickler for precise terminology, right?" He asked, rhetorically. At Asuna's sharp glance and Argo's measuring gaze, he shrugged uncomfortably and pushed forward. "So in the [Beta] there were [Extra Skills] that anyone could unlock by meeting high-spec prereqs, and there were rumors of [Unique Skills] that could only be unlocked once." Whether that meant that someone could only unlock one of if one could only be unlocked by one person ever had been a fierce and completely hypothetical debate. "Meanwhile, now, a [Unique Spell] is something that only one person has, which gets promoted to [Extra Spell] when they teach it to someone else. The implicit ranking is switched."
Kirito had reached his conclusion. "So go reread the announcement. 'In recognition of their unique achievements'…. that's why Players get [Titles]. And then bonus XP to spell development." He shook his head. "The [Magecraft System] is full of bad unfair RNG. This just… it feels like a kludge to me, something that got forced in, a compromise with the fairness of a balanced game and whatever the [Magecraft System] is supposed to be doing."
After a long moment, Argo clicked her tongue.
"Tch." She said. "I'm going to have to pay you for that, Kiribou. 100 Col."
"Thanks, but that's being cheap." Kirito shot back.
"What do you think, Shirou?" Asuna asked.
"Hm?" Kirito said, turning to look in the direction Asuna was facing.
"Guh." Argo said, as she flinched in, pressing her knees together, hunching her shoulders, and for some reason reaching up and pulling her hat down tighter around her head.
Kirito paused, the words he was going to say dying on his lips.
"Hm?" Shirou said, quirking an eyebrow as he glanced at Asuna.
"A speedo, huh." Kirito finally said, quirking his own eyebrow. "I don't even want to know what arguments Ilya used to make that happen."
Shirou crossed his arms, sighing as he looked away. "If you don't want to know, why bring it up, I wonder."
Kirito raised his hands. "No no, I was just saying that to establish this is somewhere we don't have to talk about that." He turned, his smile growing smug. "Isn't that right? Argo-neechan doesn't need to hear why Shirou is walking around in a speedo."
"You're not cute at all, Kiribou." Argo sullenly replied.
"Yes yes, very fun." Asuna said, rolling her eyes. "In the meantime, would you like something to eat, Shirou-san?"
"Ah, that would be appreciated. Thank you, Asuna-san." Shirou replied.
Asuna hummed, nodding to herself as she operated her menu. "So, what's your theory for why Klein didn't earn a Title?"
Shirou blinked, surprised. "Isn't it obvious?"
"Then why would we ask?" Argo demanded, as she glared at him from under the brim of the hat she was still pulling down on her head.
Shirou cocked his head back, blinking again. "Well… magecraft is something you could do with spells, just faster, right? An earth spell is faster than a shovel, fire magic is faster than spreading gasoline and flicking a match, and your own metal spells are faster than hammering steel and processing them in a forge. Right, Argo?"
"I guess I can see that, Sensei." Argo replied, as she frowned. Kirito felt very proud that he made the self-control check not to immediately tease her about addressing Shirou like that.
"So are you saying since Klein didn't really do anything he couldn't do without magecraft, he just did it faster, it wasn't… special, I guess?" Argo said, frowning.
Crud, while Kirito was feeling smug, she'd actually been paying attention to the conversation.
Shirou nodded. "More than that, you could say what the [Fuurinkazan] did was barely even magecraft, since they weren't trying to fully circumvent mundane effort with spellcasting, instead they were merely using small spells to cut corners on a fundamentally mundane act."
"It kind of sounds like you don't approve, Shirou-san." Asuna observed.
Kirito bit his tongue, and held his breath. Asuna, Kirito, and Argo were in a conspiracy to determine if Shirou and Ilya were really on the side of the Players, or if they were working for Kayaba. Kirito tried to compartmentalize and not think about it so he didn't seem suspicious from his own suspicions, but trust Asuna to gamble on a straight attack.
Shirou paused, and then a rueful smile spread across his face. "Ah, I supposed that sounded pretty judgmental, huh? Well, I was always taught that results matter more than sticking to proper methods, so it doesn't matter if it strays from propriety, it's fine because it worked."
"Hmm." Argo said, as she leaned forward, looking up at Shirou's face from below. "So you don't think that Klein will ever earn a [Title] from this?" She cocked her head to the side.
"Ooooh!"
The four of them paused, looking over to the side as people off in the distance cheered.
Klein, legs wrapped around a pole, wearing only a fundoshi, hung five meters in the air, above everyone, as he triumphantly raised a ceramic jug for storing alcohol over his head, shaking it upside down to show it was empty.
He swayed in place, obviously drunk, as his legs lost grasp around the pole, and he plummeted down. His futile attempt to catch himself on the pole only resulted in him starting to cartwheel as he fell.
More cheers, and laughter, came from the drunkards surrounding him.
"Not from this, no." Shirou dryly replied.
I I I
Chapter 17.4 End
I I I
1) "Ramming Speed" LOL. I think this is the first time that I've had characters exploit the Safe Zone for notionally mundane reasons.
2) Well, right at the end here, we had stuff that actually counts as content for a Beach Episode. The Asuna/Kirito shipping was orthodox, but I threw in some Argo/Shirou stuff as a tease for certain people. You know who you are.
3) Honestly the in-game gossiping on "what are Titles" was maybe the weakest part, in the sense that I'm not sure I captured all the subtext I wanted to. So let me know what you got out of it, and I'll see if that matches what I intended to put in.
4) Anyway I'm going to fix the markups and revision on the last bits and post the end of chapter omake soon, and then this cursed chapter will finally be over.
It slumbered in the lagoon at the center of this atoll, unusually dark waters that sat unusually still, until they had managed to trigger the event to awaken the Boss. Now they had dragged it out, pulling it onto the beach where they could fight it directly.
That was the boss that stood in front of Lind, as she planted her feet, raising her [Platina Halberd] above her head, in a threatening guard position.
The Krab scuttled forward, moving three steps sideways for every step forward, but it was approaching Lind like a tidal wave.
That was fine. Her halberd was as light as a reed in her hands, as she spun it around, flicking it easily as a baton. She stepped three times, so light she didn't even leave footprints on the beach sands beneath her. Even wearing her full suit of [Heavy Armor].
The Krab came in range, and stepped with half its legs, putting its whole body into the rotation as the claw bore down on her like a battering ram. It wasn't trying to pinch around her; it was closed almost like a fist, as the outside of it rushed forward like the Krab was going to smash her with a backfist.
But that was fine. She planted her feet, strongly grasped the half of her beautiful weapon, and strongly flexed her magecraft.
It was easy as breathing, now. Breath out, and leave the lungs flat and empty. As easily as that, she could flatten the curvature of space, making her as light and clear as a gas, floating across the surface of reality. Breath in, expand the ribs, drop the diaphragm, inflate the lungs to maximum, and her whole body was as heavy as lead, existing as a strong and solid metal, implacable. Her boots dug down, crushing down into the sand, her footprints centimeters deep.
The spinning Halberd lost no speed as she cheated the [World] of Aincrad, maintaining the speed even as the mass increased, as she paid Prana to create momentum from nowhere. Like that, firmly gripped in her gauntlets, the blow of the halberd intercepted the blow of the Krab.
The Klaw of the [King Krab] bore down on her like the grill of a truck, and her treasured weapon swung out, hammering like an artillery blow.
She didn't lose. In a contest of inertia, the one that existed more heavily in the world was not the Krab as wide as a building, but one lone woman.
Her ears rang from the fierce blow, nearly deafening her, even as she firmly resettled her [Platina Halberd] into a guarding stance.
Her boys wasted no time.
Yamata flickered through the air, blowing back and forth like a leaf. The various rocket verniers he had installed on his armor fired according to his orders, pushing him back and forth as he whipped back and forth. Prioritizing weight reduction over control, he didn't control his flight so much as continuously over-compensate, accepting that every time he would push too hard. It made him surprisingly hard to track, as he drunk-walked approximately towards his target, rather than properly closing in.
Shivata charged forward, tucked behind his massive shield, held in front of him like the strong plow of a bulldozer, as he slammed into a leg, forcing [King Krab] to stumble.
Above him, Yamata saw the chance, and whipped his sword out, slashing at the other Klaw, suddenly dropping his weight reduction to smash boot-first into the top of the Krab, a firm stamp at the same time as the slash.
And then he slipped, flailing around as his feet flung forward from under him. He reacted quickly, re-activating his Spell, and pushed himself with his rockets several times in succession, averaging out to [up] with his shoves.
"Switch!" He shouted as he did so.
"Switching!" Came the shout from across her.
Agil. Leader of the Guild [Agil's Item Shop], who equipped a monstrous battleaxe that could challenge even her [Platina Halberd] as the heaviest weapon on the [Front Line].
A single party of six. Three from her own [Divine Dragon Alliance], and the other half those three from [Agil's Item Shop], one of the smallest [Guilds] on the front line. Right now, they were halfway doing a scouting action to suss out the Boss' parameters, and half setting up something crazy.
But for right now, Agil's axe left a dark shadow textured like dirt as he swung it. Lind recognized it as the [Earth Kestrel] spell, one of the [Five Birds] series of elemental magics. Agil was working through them one-by-one, attempting to determine the Boss' elemental strengths and weaknesses.
As he finished the solid horizontal blow, he crouched, and then pushed off and back, retreating away. "Switch!" He shouted.
"Switching!" Shouted his man Tonnura, as he darted forward with a katana in both hands. He was low to the ground, sword tight, guarding from the front. He came forward, weaving between the legs, sword whipping out in tight arcs, slashing as he ran past them with magecraft-enhanced speed.
And then a PM appeared, and Lind narrowed her eyes. "Retreat!" She shouted. "To the bunkers!"
She backpedaled, making sure that her boys followed, and that the two with Agil also pulled back, as they darted away.
They were like pillboxes, low and sloping concrete structures that had been installed before the battle had started, before they had drawn the boss over here with Aggro. The walls were two-meter-thick concrete. Lind grunted as Yamata and Shivata darted past her, and she heaved, swinging the first armored door in, where it settled with a mighty thump against it's frame.
She darted through the cavity in the wall, pushing off the double-right-angles, as Shivata swung the second door in, sealing them inside. It was cramped, a cavity in sealed rock, lit by a single swinging light, one of those strange gemcraft almost-light-bulb things.
She sent the PM to Klein confirming that her half of the party was fine. Since his Guild had been the ones to find the Boss, he had been allowed to suggest this crazy plan first.
I I I
Klein stood on the deck of [Boaty McBoatface 3], palms resting on the pommel of his sheathed katana, planted in front of him like a cane.
In front of him, a PM appeared, indicating that Lind's half was safe.
At base it was an extremely orthodox [Yacht], but they'd added some stuff to make it cooler. Isshin and Dynamm had worked together to create a hydrofoil along the bottom of the prow. Operationally it worked the same as an airplane wing. By creating a pressure differential as water flowed across the bottom and top of the surface, it could generate lift and push upwards. By mounting the entire boat onto the hydrofoil using a strut, at enough speed it could push the entire hull out of the water, allowing the whole boat to sit above the water, only the hydrofoil submerged to create lift.
A second PM appeared, this time from Agil, letting him know those three were bunkered down as well.
Meanwhile, Harry One and Kunimittz had worked together on the really exciting part, the [Rocket Engine]. Two isolated tanks holding an oxidizer and a fuel, each with a pump to push them into a combustion chamber, where they burned ferociously hot, and then a nozzle to control the expulsion of the reaction gas to generate thrust. For a speedboat it would have been fine to just create a propeller or something, but rockets were a man's romance.
Klein nodded to himself, dismissing the PMs. "Operation start." He commanded. "Status report."
Fortunately Dale had already figured out how to liquefy air using a hybridization of [Air] and [Water] magic with some [Alchemy] tips off Ilya-san, so they were able to use liquid oxygen as their oxidizer. Working with cryogenic liquids was a nightmare and LOX was scary stuff that Klein didn't want them carrying around in case a tank exploded and everything caught fire or something, but other than all that, it was great. So all they'd had to do for consumables was figure out how to refine [Kerosene] out of bog-oil from the Slime Floor and whatever.
Well, as a result, they were cruising along at nearly minimum speed, only a few kilometers an hour, hull down in the water.
"Liquid pressure good. 70% fuel remaining, 75% LOX remaining." Harry One reported. They didn't have any instrumentation like pressure gauges or thermometers or anything like that; making the dials and faces and calibrating them would have been a ton of work, so they cheated by just embedding sensor elements, simple strands of brass, inside the tanks and lines and then remotely checking them with [Structural Grasp] magecraft. Klein didn't know where exactly Kirito had gotten his hands on that SG variant, but that spell was incredibly useful for checking stuff like that.
"Engine is stable. No oscillation." Kunimittz added, as he adjusted some valves to moderate the flow rate of fuel and oxidizer into the combustion chamber. That was another place where they ended up just cheating with magecraft, by simply [Reinforcing] everything to maximum strength so it wouldn't fail and explode underneath them.
It was a good thing that the whole lagoon in the Floor Starting Area was a [Safe Zone]. The first seven times they'd test fired the engines, which then failed in very exciting and rapid ways, Team Rocket had blasted off again. Never mind the [Real World], that wouldn't normally be survivable even in the [Game].
"Are we aligned with the target?" Klein asked.
"Target sighted and marked." Dynamm shouted back, from where he was strapped laying down at the very front of the boat, working as a forward spotter.
"Vessel aligned on mark." Isshin added, from where he was working the big steering wheel.
"Come to cruising speed." Klein commanded. "Dale, blow the canopy and manually moderate the wind."
"Flaring." Kunimittz reported, as the rocket burned more fuel, accelerating them forward. Klein leaned forward into it. The rest of them were properly strapped into crash seats. After just a moment, the ride smoothed out as the hull rose over the water and they glided along on the hydroplanes, coming up to about fifty kmph.
The roof of the vessel blew off as Dale removed the connections, letting it get picked up and peeled off by the winds blowing over their heads. Well, because Dale created a dome of quietude with Air Magecraft, it was still a smooth and silent ride inside the boat.
"Aligned?" Klein shouted.
"Aligned!" Dynamm replied.
"Aligned!" Isshin seconded.
Klein frowned, gauging the distance as he [Reinforced] his vision to the limit.
"On my mark!" He said, biting his lip as he estimated their speed, the acceleration they still had in the tank, and the distance remaining.
The time was right. He whipped his sword dramatically out of the sheathe, pointing the katana straight ahead at the target.
"Ramming speed!" He bellowed.
"Fuel flow to maximum!" Harry One shouted. "Oxidizer flow tuning… tuned to match!"
"Maximum full combustion!" Kunimittz shouted.
Klein grunted as he was nearly blown off his feat, leaning forward at a forty-five degree angle, relying on the raw Reinforced power of his body to stay standing. He instinctively squinted as the vessel surged forward, rapidly accelerating, going past two hundred kmph. Faster than they'd ever gone before. And there was still speed in in the tank.
"Closing in!" Dynamm shouted.
"Dale! Dynamm!" Klein commanded. "Eject!"
"Ejecting!" Dale and Dynamm said, as the pushed back and jumped into the air, letting the wind blowing over the top of the vessel rip them away. Klein glanced over his shoulder, nodding in satisfaction as they pulled their drag cords to slow down. Well, they were wearing specialized armor to protect against the crash impact onto the water that was also flotation equipment, so that should be fine.
With Dale gone, suddenly the wind picked up, whipping past them and howling in their ears, as they blasted over the surface of the water, the sound of the rocket roar no longer dampened by the spell.
"Engine stable!" Kunimittz shouted over the wind.
"Kunimittz, Harry One! Eject!" Klein shouted.
"Ejecting!" They replied, smashing the disconnects on their seatbelts and leaping up, tumbling in to the air after Dale and Dynamm.
"Steady!" Isshin roared, gripping the steering wheel.
They were closing in on the beach, still accelerating. Looks like they'd underestimated what the top speed of this thing really was.
"On my mark…. Eject!" Klein said, as he crouched down and pushed up, seeing Isshin do the same next to him.
With the full reinforced strength, he launched himself superhumanly high in the air, tumbling around completely disoriented from the buffeting wind. He pulled the drag cord, and jerked as it forcefully tugged on his chest harness, aligning him.
It happened in an instant.
The [Boaty McBoatface 3] rocketed forward, a blur of red as the hydrofoil was ripped off against the shore and the hull was launched like a missile, hurtling over the beach.
The Floor Boss, [King Krab], didn't even have time to react before their ship slammed into it in excess of three hundred kilometers an hour.
Then the excess fuel they'd tanked in the forward hull exploded, and in the same instant, the LOX tank ruptured, and a massive secondary fireball rippled out, a shockwave proceeding it at the speed of sound.
Klein was already moving, operating his Inventory and materializing the specialized [Tower Shield] that they'd created for exactly this purpose.
He saw the front of the shockwave expanded out in either direction, he saw the fireball billowing out behind it, and then it was blocked off by the dark metal that abruptly appeared in front of him. Reacting quickly, he curled up, pulling himself tight against the handles.
The shockwave struck like a car, punching his whole body through the shield, even through the shock-absorbing gel cells sandwiched between the plates.
"Guh!" Klein grunted, even as he was flipped over and the shield spun away from him as he fell, probably. He didn't know which way was up or where the shield had gone. Well, that was fine. The shield had done it's job protecting him from the impact. He tucked himself down, wrapping his head in his arms, legs tucked up, and then he cannoballed against the surface of the water, shoulder first.
He tumbled again, as the last of his forward speed and most of his downward speed were braked against the water. Well, the drag-cord and the crash shield had both done a good job reducing his forward speed, but if he hadn't had his whole body fully Reinforced than he probably would have taken a big hit just against the water.
When he judged his relative momentum was canceled, he untucked and blew some air out his nose. He wasn't so deep the sunlight was blotted out, so he could probably swim fine, but his clothing was optimized for protection not weight, so it would be struggle to swim against the encumbrance penalty.
[Congratulations!] The prompt appeared in front of him, announcing they'd defeated the Boss. How nice. The musical sting and the holographic banner both looked out of place while he was slowly sinking into the water. Speaking of which, he should probably do something about that, huh?
Klein opened his inventory, which was perfectly visible with its auto-glow even underwater, and swapped out his armored coat for a life vest, letting the buoyancy of the equipment lift him up.
His head popped above the waves, and he blew out the rest of what was in his lungs through his nose, and then gulped in fresh air, as he paddled back and forth, checking his surroundings and pulling up his HUD, verifying his Party were all alive.
Smoke was rising, and he could hear fires burning over the waves crashing against a beach. He looked over, and smiled.
The Boss Arena was gone, replaced by a crater. The tropical trees and bushes that weren't entirely blown away were burning, fire spreading outward and across the whole island, black smoke rising up into the air.
The acrid smoke overlaid on the salty tang of sea-air smelled like Victory.
I I I
"This is pretty good." Kirito said, face slackening as he chewed.
"Yes." Asuna agreed, smiling lightly, as she carefully lifted a portion to her mouth, humming in delight as it crossed her palate.
The Floor Boss who ruled over the 20th Floor, called [King Krab]. After being magnificently defeated by the wisdom of the [Fuurinkazan], they primary drop had been a literal ton of the mysterious food ingredient, [Krab Meat?] (Question mark in original).
Klein being Klein, as a result, there was a huge beach party, where dozens of [Cooking Stations] had been established on the beach of the 20th Floor Starting City [Safe Zone]. The objective was to eat all the [Krab Meat?] (Question mark in original).
Down by the water there were volleyball nets, where the main attraction was a team battle between Silica and Kuradeel. To be precise, a team battle between their [Familiars] where they stood back and shouted orders like dueling Pokemon masters, while Ilya sat in a tall chair and did a terrible job as referee.
And here, up in the dunes, was one of those [Cooking Stations] that was shaped like a portable grill, where Asuna was using the [Cooking Skill] to create different kinds of food from [Krab Meat?] (Question mark etc.).
Kirito was wearing a pair of swim trunks, in all-black, of course.
Meanwhile, Asuna was wearing a bikini, red with black highlights. Including a nearly transparent red sarong over the top. Kirito hadn't dared to ask what what the reasoning for that color scheme was.
It was also surprisingly hard for Kirito to keep his eyes up on her face when she moved food into his inventory through the trade window. He kept wanting to trace the lines of her body with his eyes. He wanted some kind of [Spell] that would commit what he saw to some kind of illusion recording.
"Here." Asuna commanded, operating her menu again. "Try this."
She leaned forward towards him, her expression almost scowling as she looked at him in expectation.
Kirito swallowed, keeping his face stiff as he reached out and clicked accept, trusting in his peripheral vision rather than risking his eyes wandering around if he allowed himself to look down. "Thanks." He said. Quietly he congratulated himself on how normal and completely un-strained he sounded.
Then he got distracted by what he saw in the inventory. [Krabbie Patty]. It was some kind of hamburger-type food item, but the stats were weirdly high, and that name… he couldn't put his finger on where he'd heard it, before.
Still, he materialized it, considering the burger he held in both hands, hefting it carefully. Wasting food was a sin. "Itadakimasu." He sang, before taking a big bite.
"Umm." He said, drawing the sound out. "Delicious!"
"Ah." Asuna replied, smiling behind a hand. "I'm glad you like it. Kirito-kun."
Why hadn't she materialized a burger. Why was she just watching him eat.
That was what Kirito was struggling with. He felt like by not asking he had succeeded on a Will Save, but he couldn't articulate why that was the case. It was something like instinct that told him that.
"Riajuu. Go explode."
Kirito flinched, twisting and stepping into a battle stance at the words that were spoken from behind him. "Ah, it's just you, Argo."
"Yeah, yeah." Argo said, rolling her eyes. "That's no way to talk to your neesan, Kiribou."
Absently, Kirito noticed she was wearing a brown bikini with some kind of yellow highlight pattern, probably to match her blonde hair. He still wondered if she bleached it IRL, but had never really been close enough to ask, and anyway at this point it would be pointless and almost mean to inquire. Well, she was also wearing a flat brown hat with a full brim. It was perfectly one of those bucket-shaped hats you'd see on a fishing show.
"Hai hai, Argo-neesan." Kirito said flippantly. "But be careful and ask nicely, otherwise Asuna-neechan isn't going to give you any food."
Asuna just shook her head with an indulgent expression, before operating her menu.
With a smug expression, Argo reached out and clicked on where her own menu would be, without looking. "Thanks, Asuna-chan."
"No problem, Argo-chan." Asuna replied, cheerfully. "Would you like more food? Kirito-kun."
Kirito grimaced. "Yes, but let me finish this first, please. It's good so I don't want to rush."
"Riajuu." Argo muttered, materializing her own sandwich and taking a big bite, chewing aggressively.
Kirito considered that. It wasn't quite like Argo was trying to tease them just for the sake of teasing them, it kind of… felt like she was trying to set up the opening move to the thing she actually wanted to talk about.
"So is this where I ask for 100 Col, or what?" Kirito decided on.
"Hoh?" Argo said, glancing at him from under the brim of her hat. "It's cute that you're catching on, Kiribou, but it's not nice to flirt with your neechan in front of the main girl."
"Argo." Asuna replied, in a perfectly businesslike tone that wasn't frosty at all.
"Right, right." Argo said, with a flinch. "Anyway, I'm collecting bets on why Klein didn't get a [Title] out of his shenanigans, so if you've got a hypothesis, I'd be happy to pool you in."
"How would you even determine who won?" Kirito said, frowning as he considered the logistics.
Argo just rolled her eyes at him.
"Well," Asuna said as she engaged with the question honestly, "A [Title] is something a Player gets for single-handedly defeating a Boss, right?"
"Nah." Kirito casually replied, as he polished off his burger. "It's for coming up with something non-reproducible that screws up game balance, right?"
Argo gave him a considering look. "That's a pretty interesting perspective, Kiribou. Don't most Front Liners agree with Asuna-chan on this one?"
Asuna was also giving him a strange look, although she was a little more guarded about it. It made Kirito feel strangely defensive.
"Well, look." Kirito said, as he considered how to say it. "It's like… being able to solo a Boss is a symptom, but that's just the obvious thing. Like… suppose someone came up with a spell like [Avada Kedavra] or something, that anyone with enough Dark Side Points could use to whack anybody, Boss or not." He gestured vaguely with his hands. "The game would balance against it by giving every [Boss] like, flying Adds that would soak them, or protection against instadeath, or whatever, right?"
Kirito nodded in certainty. "But if it's something that one-and-only-one person could do, then that person would get a Title, and the game would just throw up it's hands and stop trying to balance against them, at the cost to everyone else."
"You've got a lot of confidence, Kirito-kun." Asuna said, giving him a speculative look. "Are you sure it's warranted?"
Kirito gave her a crooked grin as he rigidly kept his gaze focused on her eyes. She huffed, looking down and to the side as she crossed her arms defensively.
Kirito forcibly changed the subject back. "Well… okay. This is a little sensitive, but… Kayaba Akihiko was a stickler for precise terminology, right?" He asked, rhetorically. At Asuna's sharp glance and Argo's measuring gaze, he shrugged uncomfortably and pushed forward. "So in the [Beta] there were [Extra Skills] that anyone could unlock by meeting high-spec prereqs, and there were rumors of [Unique Skills] that could only be unlocked once." Whether that meant that someone could only unlock one of if one could only be unlocked by one person ever had been a fierce and completely hypothetical debate. "Meanwhile, now, a [Unique Spell] is something that only one person has, which gets promoted to [Extra Spell] when they teach it to someone else. The implicit ranking is switched."
Kirito had reached his conclusion. "So go reread the announcement. 'In recognition of their unique achievements'…. that's why Players get [Titles]. And then bonus XP to spell development." He shook his head. "The [Magecraft System] is full of bad unfair RNG. This just… it feels like a kludge to me, something that got forced in, a compromise with the fairness of a balanced game and whatever the [Magecraft System] is supposed to be doing."
After a long moment, Argo clicked her tongue.
"Tch." She said. "I'm going to have to pay you for that, Kiribou. 100 Col."
"Thanks, but that's being cheap." Kirito shot back.
"What do you think, Shirou?" Asuna asked.
"Hm?" Kirito said, turning to look in the direction Asuna was facing.
"Guh." Argo said, as she flinched in, pressing her knees together, hunching her shoulders, and for some reason reaching up and pulling her hat down tighter around her head.
Kirito paused, the words he was going to say dying on his lips.
"Hm?" Shirou said, quirking an eyebrow as he glanced at Asuna.
"A speedo, huh." Kirito finally said, quirking his own eyebrow. "I don't even want to know what arguments Ilya used to make that happen."
Shirou crossed his arms, sighing as he looked away. "If you don't want to know, why bring it up, I wonder."
Kirito raised his hands. "No no, I was just saying that to establish this is somewhere we don't have to talk about that." He turned, his smile growing smug. "Isn't that right? Argo-neechan doesn't need to hear why Shirou is walking around in a speedo."
"You're not cute at all, Kiribou." Argo sullenly replied.
"Yes yes, very fun." Asuna said, rolling her eyes. "In the meantime, would you like something to eat, Shirou-san?"
"Ah, that would be appreciated. Thank you, Asuna-san." Shirou replied.
Asuna hummed, nodding to herself as she operated her menu. "So, what's your theory for why Klein didn't earn a Title?"
Shirou blinked, surprised. "Isn't it obvious?"
"Then why would we ask?" Argo demanded, as she glared at him from under the brim of the hat she was still pulling down on her head.
Shirou cocked his head back, blinking again. "Well… magecraft is something you could do with spells, just faster, right? An earth spell is faster than a shovel, fire magic is faster than spreading gasoline and flicking a match, and your own metal spells are faster than hammering steel and processing them in a forge. Right, Argo?"
"I guess I can see that, Sensei." Argo replied, as she frowned. Kirito felt very proud that he made the self-control check not to immediately tease her about addressing Shirou like that.
"So are you saying since Klein didn't really do anything he couldn't do without magecraft, he just did it faster, it wasn't… special, I guess?" Argo said, frowning.
Crud, while Kirito was feeling smug, she'd actually been paying attention to the conversation.
Shirou nodded. "More than that, you could say what the [Fuurinkazan] did was barely even magecraft, since they weren't trying to fully circumvent mundane effort with spellcasting, instead they were merely using small spells to cut corners on a fundamentally mundane act."
"It kind of sounds like you don't approve, Shirou-san." Asuna observed.
Kirito bit his tongue, and held his breath. Asuna, Kirito, and Argo were in a conspiracy to determine if Shirou and Ilya were really on the side of the Players, or if they were working for Kayaba. Kirito tried to compartmentalize and not think about it so he didn't seem suspicious from his own suspicions, but trust Asuna to gamble on a straight attack.
Shirou paused, and then a rueful smile spread across his face. "Ah, I supposed that sounded pretty judgmental, huh? Well, I was always taught that results matter more than sticking to proper methods, so it doesn't matter if it strays from propriety, it's fine because it worked."
"Hmm." Argo said, as she leaned forward, looking up at Shirou's face from below. "So you don't think that Klein will ever earn a [Title] from this?" She cocked her head to the side.
"Ooooh!"
The four of them paused, looking over to the side as people off in the distance cheered.
Klein, legs wrapped around a pole, wearing only a fundoshi, hung five meters in the air, above everyone, as he triumphantly raised a ceramic jug for storing alcohol over his head, shaking it upside down to show it was empty.
He swayed in place, obviously drunk, as his legs lost grasp around the pole, and he plummeted down. His futile attempt to catch himself on the pole only resulted in him starting to cartwheel as he fell.
More cheers, and laughter, came from the drunkards surrounding him.
"Not from this, no." Shirou dryly replied.
I I I
Chapter 17.4 End
I I I
1) "Ramming Speed" LOL. I think this is the first time that I've had characters exploit the Safe Zone for notionally mundane reasons.
2) Well, right at the end here, we had stuff that actually counts as content for a Beach Episode. The Asuna/Kirito shipping was orthodox, but I threw in some Argo/Shirou stuff as a tease for certain people. You know who you are.
3) Honestly the in-game gossiping on "what are Titles" was maybe the weakest part, in the sense that I'm not sure I captured all the subtext I wanted to. So let me know what you got out of it, and I'll see if that matches what I intended to put in.
4) Anyway I'm going to fix the markups and revision on the last bits and post the end of chapter omake soon, and then this cursed chapter will finally be over.
DamnedAeons 187
An Ally of Convenience is an Enemy of Opportunity
- Location
- Texas
Right, who's down a firstborne? 2 chapters so close together, we're truly blessed
Guile
Having a really great time right now
This is adorable in all kinds of ways.
The Kirito/Asuna shipping. The Argo/Shirou shipping. The reveal that Asuna watched Spongebob Squarepants as a kid. Klein and Furinkazan being themselves.
Like, he failed to get a [Title] and he didn't impress either Kayaba or Ilya, but 'the guy who made the Beach Episode happen' has its own panache, as a reputation. You get the feeling that Klein would trade in a [Title] to give everyone on the Front Line a good day in a heartbeat, anyway.
The Kirito/Asuna shipping. The Argo/Shirou shipping. The reveal that Asuna watched Spongebob Squarepants as a kid. Klein and Furinkazan being themselves.
Like, he failed to get a [Title] and he didn't impress either Kayaba or Ilya, but 'the guy who made the Beach Episode happen' has its own panache, as a reputation. You get the feeling that Klein would trade in a [Title] to give everyone on the Front Line a good day in a heartbeat, anyway.
Beach Episode bosses are easier than normal.
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Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Snrk. That seems excessive. Luckily this is just a mob with drops, or else it'd have ruined the meat, too!
I admit that I was expecting 'just' a piercing ram of some kind, not for the whole boat to explode.
What kind of asshole builds a kamikaze rocket boat that doesn't explode? It'd be like a evil volcano lair with no self-destruct!
- Location
- Indiana, US
To be fair, the difference between "rocket boat" and "kamikaze rocket boat" is whether it is currently about to explode.